ABSTRACT Stress can inhibit gonadal activity via Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Gonad (HPG) axis activity suppression. In the present study, effects of intermittent feeding (IF) on gonadal function under stress in male and female mice were evaluated. Twenty eight male and twenty eight female mice's were divided into four groups. The control group received adequate food and water without stress. The second group received four days of electric shock without food deprivation. The third group was deprived of food two hours/day for a week, and the fourth group was deprived of food (2 hours/day for seven consecutive days) and then electric foot shock stress was applied to them for four days. Blood samples were collected from all animals for plasma testosterone, estrogen and/or Interlukin-6 (IL-6) evaluation. The animals’ gonads were also removed and fixed for the measure of their weight. Results showed that stress reduces both testosterone and estrogen levels, whereas IF did not change the hormone levels. In addition, stress increases blood IL-6 concentration. The combination of IF and stress, increased the hormone levels in animals. Stress and IF alone had no significant effect on gonadal weight in the male mice, whereas stress decreased gonadal weight in the females. Combination of stress with IF increased gonadal weight in both male and female mice. In conclusion stress showed a negative effect on gonadal function in both animals with more effect on females. Intermittent feeding inhibits the stress effect and even promotes the gonadal function in both sexes. The effect may be due to IL-6 reduction.

Solid-phase peptide synthesis of dipeptide (histidine-β-alanine) as a chelating agent examined by common N-9-fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl-N-trityl-L-histidine and tert-butyloxycarbonyl-β-alanine-OH amino acid derivatives. Trityl chloride resin was used as a carrier resin. The molecular structure of the dipeptide was definite by using different methods such as ultraviolet visible (UV-Vis), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), proton (1H) nuclear magnetic ressonance (NMR) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and the chelating property of synthesized dipeptide was investigated for removing of metal ions Al3+, Cu2+, Hg2+ and Pb2+in vitro. In addition, the pharmacological and biological activities of dipeptide were examined by prediction of activity spectra for substances (PASS) program.